Stripe partners with Mastercard to speed up payments in today’s sharing economy

Mastercard is working with Stripe to expedite the payment process for American sellers on the latter’s marketplaces using the instant payouts feature from Stripe.

We live in a world of the sharing economy, a shareconomy if you will. A world of ‘Uber moments’ and Airbnb residences, of apps that split tabs and have the skills to simplify paying the bills.

Therefore, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the big payment giants are working on products that make getting paid in these shareconomies easier.

The new partnership between Mastercard and Stripe will see the latter use the former’s MasterCard Send service. It’s a service that aims to speed up the rate at which people and businesses send and receive funds by digitizing personal payments that are typically handled via cash or check.

“Mastercard Send addresses the need in today’s digital world to enable consumers, businesses, governments and more to send money instantly and securely, through a robust platform that joins all U.S debit card accounts with one connection,” said Sherri Haymond, executive vice president, Digital Partnerships, Mastercard.

These instant payouts are open to US-based seller including drivers, delivery people, errand runners, caregivers, or other contractors. They are available in American marketplaces running on Stripe Connect. Examples of marketplaces on Stripe today include Postmates, Instacart and iCracked.

These instant payouts also spread to include transportation and will now power Lyft’s Express Pay feature which allows drivers to quickly cash out the money they make instead of waiting to be paid in cycles.

According to MasterCard, since the feature’s roll out, Lyft has paid over $500m through it, with 50% of payouts happening through Express Pay.

“In building instant payouts, we’ve been fortunate to work closely with great partners, including Mastercard,” said Billy Alvarado, chief business officer, Stripe.

“Millions of people drive, deliver, provide healthcare or otherwise sell on marketplaces using Stripe. Whether they’re earning a living full-time or doing part-time work, for these people, getting paid a few days faster is a big help,” he added.